


Love is making it work

by buttheyrebrothers



Series: What is love? [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 03:59:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4005064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttheyrebrothers/pseuds/buttheyrebrothers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam helps Dean to understand that love doesn't have to be a weapon made to destroy you. It can also be a fortress if you'd only build it together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is making it work

**Author's Note:**

> The next installment of my What is love series. This time with the wonderful answer from my lovely Sarah (patchworkgirlfriend at tumblr). She said  
> Love is a fortress.  
> It’s something that you build together.  
> Life lays siege to it and you can either abandon it or rebuild the broken bricks, making it stronger each time.
> 
> I hope I did it justice. A big and heartfelt thank you to marrieddorks for taking time out of her day and betaing this.

Dean had always harbored the suspicion that Sam had only loved him, had maybe even worshiped the ground he had been walking on, because there had been no other choice. We all need our heroes growing up and for some reason, one Dean could never figure out, Sam could never look up to their father like Dean had all his life. Sam had never craved John’s approval, fully content to bask in Dean’s praise and the knowledge that his big brother would always be proud of him.

Dean had loved Sam fiercely from the moment their mother had placed the small bundle in his arms, overwhelmed with too many feelings he had never felt before. There had been protectiveness, fondness and so much irrational fear when faced with how small and vulnerable his baby brother had been.

But for Dean, Sam’s love had always stemmed from opportunity.

Only instead of upsetting him, the thought had just urged him to do better by Sam, to guard him jealously and protect him fiercely from anything that dared to come to close – and way too soon this had included himself.

When he had watched his thirteen years old brother dance under the light of the fireworks he had bought to surprise him – intended to give him some kind of normalcy in a life that was so far from it they could have lived in Narnia instead – he had realized that Sam needed to be protected from him as well. He had known that he must have been some kind of monster when he had felt want spreading through his veins like fire, igniting his insides at the sight of the lights caressing Sam’s features the same way he had wanted to.

From that moment on the imbalance between them had only grown. Dean had once said to Sam that all he’d ever done was run away and that might have been true, but Sam was not the only Winchester that tended to run if things got overwhelming.

After Dean had accepted that desire had made itself at home in his chest he had decided to keep it – and in extension himself – as far away from Sam as possible. Instead he had buried himself in anonymous flirts and fucks, his brain pleasantly numbed from booze. The more he had tried to put distance between them the more Sam had tried to reach for him, making it harder and harder to stop desire from sinking its demolishing claws into his brother.

So Dean’s first conception of love was that of a weapon you aimed at yourself and its destruction would leave scars on your bones that would write only one name over and over and over. It had destroyed the man his father once had been and it would cripple Dean sooner than later, too.

It took him losing Sam and getting him back again to realize that this had not to be the only truth. Sure, when Sam had lost Jessica – and had been in danger of losing himself in guilt and revenge in the process – Dean had thought love’s deadly blow had claimed his brother as well.

But Sam had surprised him, like he had so many times before, and had shown him that love did not have to be a weapon - it could also be a fortress. They just had to build it together. _You are not alone in this, Dean. You will always have me._

At first Dean had not dared to believe him, still weary from too many years of silent suffering. Slowly, but steadily though, Sam had started to coax him out of his self-imposed exile. He had shown him over and over again that he was willing to carry this weight with Dean together, that they would build their fortress brick by brick, until no enemy could ever storm their sanctuary. He proved to Dean that no price was too high to pay and nothing would ever make him give up on his big brother. _You’re my big brother, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you._

Until then the fortress they had built had been growing like a living thing, stronger and stronger and held together by a love so deep and pure it put everything else to shame.

But life was a cruel thing sometimes. It would lay siege to it, coming at your fortress as a brother falling into your arms and trusting you to catch him – and you did, just like you had caught him all your life; only this time he would not hug and kiss you. You would not get to feel the warmth of his body, comforting and soft like the most desirable blanket in the world. Instead, Death would claim all his hugs and kisses, taking the warmth with him to places unknown.

He had failed to protect their fortress, he had not guarded it carefully enough and that was his punishment. _I guess that’s what I do, I let down the people I love._

There hadn’t been much time to think about what he had been doing, driving to that crossroads and making a deal for his brother’s life. But later he would think that there hadn’t been much of a choice. He could’ve been abandoned their damaged fortress and let love become his weapon again, ready to deliver the final blow, or he could choose to rebuild the broken bricks.

No, there really hadn’t been a choice.

Life had been coming at their fortress many times since then, the blows causing severe damage more often than not. It always seemed like the ruins left could not be salvaged, but that had never stopped them from trying. Their glue was made out of blood and tears, of _I’m sorry_ and _Don’t you dare think that there is anything, past or present, that I would put in front of you_ and _You’re my brother, and I’m here to take you home._

And when he had thought that the Mark had finally managed what so many had tried before, that it had burned their fortress down, Sam had to go and pick up the ashes, ready to make clay out of it.

_You’ll never, ever hear me say, that you – the real you – is anything but good._

They would build their fortress again and this time? It will be even stronger.


End file.
